Having stopped off at South End, High Street, Bassingbourn (Cambridgeshire) on a cheeky pit stop to Norwich, our pie needs were met by The Hoops Pub in Bassingbourn. Union flag bunting lined the thatched roof on the way into the pub, towards their friendly staff who kindly clarified what a “Polabe Pie” was. For this Royal Wedding Bank Holiday weekend there was not only the union of Prince William and Kate, but in our pie we had the union of Pork, Lamb and Beef chunks [hence the Po(rk)La(mb)Be(ef) name]. The main disappointment was the lack of side and base pastry (for this was in effect a meat stew served in a little dish with a pastry lid on top). And a side disappointment for one of our reviewers was the lack of poultry/chicken in the pie, which had to be clarified as not actually being on the contents and therefore was never going to be in his pie! So how would the top crust only pie fair with our reviewers? Would it be unbullevable? Could ewe rate it highly? Or were the pub telling porkies when they label this as a pie?

So on with the feedback: Reviewer 1 was quite disappointed at the lack of a pure pie, with the lack of side and base pastry leaving a gap. But the unique flavour of pork, lamb and beef made up for this in some respects. He’d never had a pie with such a meatilicious content, though the quantity did not make up for the slight lack of quality in the meat, with the gristle leaving him chewing the fat over whether this was a good pie or not. (4.1 / 7)

Reviewer 2 though that the meal was very nice, having a nice range of meat (even if it was a bit gristly in places) and a very nice pastry lid. However the lack of a side and base left him wishing for more pastry, to compliment the very nice gravy, meat and chips. While not officially being a proper pie, he’d give it 4.3/7

In addition to this, our third reviewer had a Steak and Ale pie from the same establishment, commenting that he really wanted to enjoy this pie and it did look impressive as it was laid down in front of him, but he soon realised that it was another top-crust pie and similar to ones he has eaten before. Putting this aside for a minute, the majority of the content was gravy but the morsels of steak were very nice. He’d have liked there to more than just meat and gravy in his pie. He’d give it a score of 4.35/7.
All in all, it was glorious to stop off and eat some pie but the lack of pastry left us Hoop-ing for more.

Score for Polabe Pie: 4.2/7
Score for Steak and Ale Pie: 4.35/7

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It’s the age old saying...if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. No, wait. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Yeah, that’s the one. Though seeing as I’m not an eater of broth, I thought I’d see whether the saying applied to pies too. And what better way to test this out than to visit Cooks of Pwllheli in North Wales. Cooks takeaway are a local firm, looking to corner the niche market of luxury pie production in takeaway form, located in the far north-west corner of Wales. The standard of their fish, chips and – most importantly – pies immediately caught my eye. So the question was, would Cooks spoil the pie? Or would I have got a real catch?

So the first thing to notice with this pie is that the pastry on this pie is flaky and delightful almost to the extreme! There is almost too much flaky goodness as you cut through the pie, making you wonder if they actually remembered to put the content of the pie in there at all! But rest assured, when I dug down through the pastry lid to the content, what I found were lovely, tender pieces of Steak and a not too much Kidney to compliment the pastry and rest of the pie perfectly. As a side point, the chips there are very nice too, and you can clearly see the chunks of steak and gravy oozing out of this pie (always a good sign). I would certainly commend the cook at Cooks for their fine effort in producing a great, if slightly pricey, takeaway pie. I certainly wouldn’t be able to have too many Cooks pies, that’s for sure! And a great way to end the New Word Alive conference too!

Score: 5.2/7

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I’m gonna cut to the chase here. I don’t like writing pie reviews for pies which have not ticked all the boxes on satisfying the pallet. And while I understand that I perhaps have a slightly higher expectation of pies than the typical punter, I was quite disappointed with the Meat and Potato pie served up at a Haven Holiday site I visited in Pwllheli recently. The staff are very nice, the general standard of food is good for a busy mass-produced restaurant, but sadly there does not appear to have been enough time and effort put into the pies on the menu.

Firstly, I’m always hesitant when the menu says “meat pie”, as I’m unsure what kind of pie producer would be so uncertain of its contents that they could not specify the meat or meats present in said pie. However I am assured “meat” is a typical Northern labelling of pies, and I was in North Wales, so I went for it anyway. And while the content of the pie was edible, if not appealing on the eyes (see photo), the pastry really let the side down in quite a major way. The pastry was far too solid, making it difficult to cut and it was far too dry. Fortunately I had taken additional gravy, but as you can see there is no lovely runny gravy oozing out of the pie either. The meat was not obviously recognisable either.

While the pie was eaten in good company with my friends from the 3-5s kids work team, sadly the restaurant were Haven a laugh when they served up this pie. (Might need a dustpan and brush to clear up the remainder of this pie, hey Han?!)

Score: 3/7

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Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Pie Review

Sainsbury's have really given us something to write home about recently, with their Pieminister commemoration pie and now their extraordinary Taste the Difference Roasted Butternut Squash and Feta Cheese with Filo Pastry Pie. It certainly looks the part with its filo pastry "crown", (full marks there) but is it actually any good?



Continuing with the vegetable theme of the pie (and in view of the very sunny nature of the day), I opt for a large side salad with croutons rather than the standard chips. I have to admit, sometimes I eat pies just for the sake for reviewing them - and I'm not actually looking forward to eating it - but this is not the case with this pie. I am actually really looking forward to eating it, if it does taste as good as it looks! Let's see if I can taste the difference...

Being careful not to disturb the delicate filo pastry crown when I cut through it with the knife, I open up the pie to find a delightful combination of feta cheese, butternut squash and red onion. Since this is a vegetarian pie it is not possible to comment on chewiness of the meat, but the content is very pleasing to the eye and to the palate. It is perfect for the sunny weather, and I don't actually miss the meat as much as I thought I would. I love the filo pastry addition - something which I think is very underused. In future I'd like to see more creativity with the pastry in more pies (as long as it does not deviate from the rules of what makes a pie a pie). Great work. I am a big fan of this pie.

Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Roasted Butternut Squash and Feta Cheese with Filo Pastry Pie
Score: 6.03/7
TJP

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Pieminister Pie Review - Kate and Wills Beef and Brandy

If you've been so much as awake for the past few months you'll have heard of the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. While we of course extend our congratulations to the happy couple, I've also become increasingly amused by some of the wonderfully wacky "commemorative" wedding souvenirs. And the wackiest I've come across so far is one that is the closest to my heart: a commemorative beef and brandy pie from Pieminister. Will it be any good?

Described as "British beef, wine, bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and a dash of brandy in lovely pastry", this sounds like a premium quality pie. And at a princely sum of £3-4, I am expecting this to taste like a quality pie too!



After a bit of time in the oven, I crack open the crispy pastry to reveal the glistening brown contents. The quality is obvious as I take a bite of the beef - its melt-in-the-mouth tenderness is a real testament to the great reputation of the Pieminister brand. This pie is royally fit for a King. The pastry is indeed lovely, and the delicate notes of the wine and succulence of the beef is married perfectly with the kick of the brandy. Whatever your views on mushrooms (I am a disliker), you have to agree that they add further body to what is already a rich and original gastronomic experience.


I hope Buckingham Palace are to serve these on the wedding day - they should soon be adorned with the Royal seal of approval.

Pieminister Kate and Wills Beef and Brandy Pie - British beef, wine, bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and a dash of brandy in lovely pastry
Score: 6.42/7
TJP

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What better way to celebrate British Pie Week than to enjoy not one, but two pies in a week from the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham? The clever staff at the NIA cafe clearly knew how to give a morale booster to all the volunteers who were hitting the Arena that week for what was a quality week of high class Badminton. For the Yonex All England Badminton Championship was in town from 7th-13th March 2011 and in order to keep happy the army of volunteers kindly giving up their week to help support the event, the NIA staff knew what pastry based meatylicious product to whack on the menu. The only disappointment was that the British players did not last long in the tournament, to back up the great British dinner on offer almost every day of the week! (I had to rub my eyes at sheer disbelief seeing pie after pie after pie on the menu all week – although sadly a few of these pies were potato covered “pies” of the cottage and fish variety, which we connoisseurs at pierate.co.uk would definitely not define as real pies.)

So once the pies were served up, did they taste smashing? Or was I left with only backhanded comments rather than feeling the pie had hit the back of the net? Would I need to drop shot these pies into the nearest bin or was I onto a real winner? Well I consumed a Steak pie on one evening and a Beef and Onion pie on another evening. And the good news is that they were both pretty reasonable pies. While I personally wouldn’t have recommended spending the £7.50 to have this level of pie, chips and veg at the NIA cafe – after all, this wasn’t the number one pie in the world – I was certainly happy enough to enjoy the whole pie in the comfort of having an £7.50 meal voucher to cover my food. The pie was covered in nice pastry and the fillings were good. Portion wise, the pie could have been a bit bigger and the base pastry a bit less soggy, but all in all the pie was very pleasant. If I was in the NIA again sometime, I certainly wouldn’t stop myself making a big racquet in requesting another NIA pie.

Score: 4.5/7

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Sainsbury's Classic Steak and Guinness Puff Pastry Pie Review

There’s nothing better after a long day at the office than being invited over for dinner at a friend’s house. No, wait, I lie. The only thing that’s better is being invited over for dinner at a friend’s house and being served Pie!* And after having to WAIT all week for the pie (having had a tip off earlier in the week that it would be pie we were having for dinner), good things certainly came to those who wait(ed).

So with baited breath, I waited for the Senei (that’s the affectionate term for the couple I was having dinner with) to bring out the pie which I had by this point found out would be laced with Guinness. For this was no standard “steak and ale” jobby – but was instead filled with the real stuff. Accept no imitations – this was Sainsbury’s Steak and Guinness pie. With genuine Guinness. But the real question was “would it taste like Guinness?”

The answer was a resounding “not really”. While this certainly didn’t let the side down – for the pie was very nice in fact – the Guinness certainly didn’t leap out at me. What did leap out at me though were the lovely tender chunks of steak and a nice rich gravy. While the pie was quite thin and compact, the content was strong. Certainly no air gaps in this pie! The top pastry lid was particularly nice and I would certainly recommend it to the pie loving community. Good work Sainos! What’s even better, of course, is that the pie was shared with great company (even if the slide show of America holiday photos did let the side down a little – computers eh?!)

p.s. please do excuse Mark's girly pink table cloth!

Sainsbury's Classic Steak and Guinness Puff Pastry Pie
Score: 4.9/7
RAS

*Okay, so admittedly there are plenty of things better than eating pie in the world, but for the sake of this blog, I’m going to stick with what I put. Makes it sound better that way!

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This is not just a pie... this is an M and S pie.... which roughly translates to "not a pie at all". So excited was I to purchase and subsequently eat this pie, I did not glance at the words on the front of the box "Flaky puff pastry topcrust pie..." I just saw PIE. In the oven it went, but upon looking at the cooking instructions, I was appalled to see "remove pastry lid and stir before serving." Just what sort of pie was this?

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Bad and pie are two words that just don't sound right together. It seems like a bit of an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms because pie is generally... well, good. Our regular readers will have noticed that there aren't a lot of pies scoring less than 50% of the available 7 points. The reason is it's as easy as pie to make a good pie. While pastry is hard to master it is difficult to make it taste awful, I know, I've given it my best shot. Gravy is great, everyone loves it, how can you make a simple mixture of fat, salt and water taste bad? Getting good meat in the filling is where a pie might often fall down but many pies do in fact have poor quality meat and don't fall into the dreaded 'bad pie' category.

I've gone for some pies without a meatylicious filling such as lentil pie and even the absence of meat hasn't made the pie taste bad. So when I saw a box of 4 Quorn deep filled mince and onion pies I thought I would take one for the team and give it a go. It is our duty to try as many pies as we can. Plus, I actually like Quorn mince.

Upon opening the box I realised that the pies were rather microscopic. They were about half the size of a 'regular' pie, see this one here next to an ordinary size lollypop. They were also an unusually white colour. I put two in the oven to make up for the size which was a terrible mistake. Taking them out after the standard 30 minutes the appearance did not seem to have improved. There was no lovely golden colour as shown by the box, with the top still looking quite pale and the bottom a bit grey and soggy. They completely fell apart when I tried to cut them, the box is such a lie!

But what about the eating? The pastry was gooey and crispy in completely the wrong proportions, in my view. The top was very flaky and seemed more like filo pastry that puff pastry. It tasted of nothing. I also found the bottom to be slimy and gross. The capacity was absolutely tiny but somehow they still weren't able to fill it with content. Deep filled????? Don't make me sick on my own scorn. The worst part was the gravy, to me it tasted like someone had washed up a gravy jug and recycled the water from the washing up bowl as the content for these pies. Perhaps surprisingly, the Quorn itself was the best part of the pie, fairly meaty considering it has no meat in it.

After a while this completely put me off my food, the rest of my dinner is still in the fridge. The main problem is there were four in the box, how do I get rid of them???

2.1/7

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ASDA Bistro Ultimate Steak Pie Review

After seeing this badboy "Ultimate Steak Pie" advertised on the television, I felt it was my duty to take a detour on my way home. It was by no means my local supermarket, but I just had to visit ASDA to get my hands on what could potentially be the biggest overstatement of the year. How could a pie be the "ultimate" pie? Could it really be that good that all other manufacturers would raise their hands and say "No, you've got us there, we can't better that so were packing up and pawning all our assets"? I simply had to find out.


Taking this pie out of the box, it has a special feel already. If feels solid, weighty, dense. If the eating doesn't go so well I could use this as a paperweight or doorstop. I love the appearance, and how it's sprinkled with black pepper. This is high quality at its most obvious.

Pie in oven. Such a beautiful sight for any Pierateer, especially when it's an Ultimate Steak Pie!




Cracking open the pie, the quality chunks of steak are immediately apparent. There's a great steak:gravy ratio, and the content is a decent proportion of the intra-pastry cavity. It is a taste sensation - everything about this pie is fantastically excellent. The pastry is perfectly crunchy, and the meat melts in the mouth like it should do. Good job ASDA!!




ASDA Bistro Ultimate Steak Pie
Score: 6.49/7
TJP

Note: This pie has now been ranked as 4.23/7 due to a second rating of this pie that was extremely disappointing - see the video to see how bad this second rating of this pie was. I Made a Mistake, I Ate the Great Ultimate Steak Pie

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If you've ever bought a Pukka Pie, you'll know it's essential not to compromise - and always oven cook your pie rather than microwave it! So imagine my surprise when I spot these frozen Pukka Pies that are specially made for the microwave. Also shocking is the crumbly shortcrust pastry - a shock departure from the puff pastry that adorns the standard Pukka Pie.

After 4 minutes in the microwave (700W), the pie is sitting nicely with some alphabet potato shapes. But my first doubts about the microwaveable pie arise - you would usually have a pie with chips which takes a good 14 minutes in the oven anyway! So unless you're having the pie on its own, you're not really saving any time. However, the potential rapid access to a pie makes the microwaveability a winner!

A look at the content. There are obvious chunks of chicken and the pie is filled to capacity. Excellent! Or "pukka", as Jamie Oliver might say!



I really enjoyed this pie. The meat was not chewy, and the pastry was tasty. As expected with a pie that is microwaved (especially from frozen), the pastry was a little soggy and lost out on the crunchy flakiness that you would achieve with an oven pie. But you have to balance the convenience with taste, and I would say that on balance the convenience did not act too considerably to the detriment of taste. Great work Pukka Pies! Now invent some new flavours :P

Score: 5.5/7

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Here at pierate, we not only want to inform you of the best pies you can buy in shops, we also want to share with you ideas to create your own master pie-ces, (like the Lentil Pie featured earlier). So today we have two pie recipes to share with our fellow pie lovers!

Pie On A Budget.
We've all been there. You have people coming around for dinner and it's not pay day until tomorrow. You know they're not expecting a slap up meal, but beans on toast is not an option either. You need to impress them. But lo! Feeding four on a budget really is as easy as pie.

Armed with a £4 Tesco club card voucher I headed into the supermarket and came out with: 59p 'just add water' pastry mix, 2 for £1 condensed soup tins (one chicken, one chicken with white wine), a 36p tin of sweetcorn, a bag of frozen chips (99p) and a £1 bag of frozen veg. "Wait!" I hear you cry! "Where is the meat?" Well, when I got home I defrosted a bag of roast chicken leftovers, the 'red' meat that goes well in things like casseroles. Well it also goes brilliantly in pie! I also chucked in a few finely chopped mushrooms that I had in the fridge and needed using up.

I made the pie and served in with the chips and veg. It went down a storm and I was commended on my chef skills and was begged for the recipe. So here it is pie fans! A fantastic pie on a fantastic budget!


Is It a Pie?

A huge question here at pierate is whether mash potato on top of a base counts as a pie (e.g. the traditional Shepard's Pie). The general opinion of pieraters is that these are not in fact pies. But this image of meat and gravy baked in the oven with mash on top (rather than pastry) is strong in the public's view of pies. Furthermore, here at pierate, we encourage experimentation. So here is a classic twist on the traditional Shepard's 'Pie'.

Here we have the chicken and bacon 'pie'. Diced chicken and bacon, fried with herbs, garlic and pepper then chucked in a pie dish with a cheese sauce and a tin of sweetcorn, then mash potato placed on top and baked until the mash is tinged brown. Now, not one to blow my own trumpet, this 'pie' was scrummy. But while it was baked in a pie dish and had a lid, it doesn't really count as a pie. Now if the whole thing were to be encased in pastry (including the mash)... That must be my next project.




ARL

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